Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Another Great...Lost

Hi everyone, the weather is getting a touch better here outside Cleveland and I hope you are all enjoying it. But on to more serious things.

It seems like at this point in comic book history, a lot of the Golden and Silver age artists and writers are passing away, since so many of the greats are at least in their 80's if not older (for instance, Stan Lee just turned 90 last Christmas). Within the last few days, comics great Carmine Infantino passed away. He was 87 years old.

Starting as the Flash artist in the late 1940's, Carmine changed his art style in the 1950's, creating a new, streamlined, art-deco type revolutionary style which fit the new Flash in 1956, while literally creating the Silver age with the landmark Showcase #4 comic. Recently passed great Joe Kubert inked that same issue.

But it was in 1968, when Infantino was elevated to Artistic Director of DC that the company went through a refreshing revitalization. Hiring artists as book editors instead of writers, DC Comics had a look between 1968-72 that was magnificent.

DC rewarded Carmine by making him publisher in 1972, but even after laying the groundwork for the Chris Reeves movie in the 70's, Carmine was fired after Marvel Comics overtook DC in overall market share. He went over to Marvel then and drew Star Wars before returni ng to DC to draw Flah for about 60 issues. He was also best known for helping save Batman in 1964 during what was called, "The New Look," and art on Adam Strange. He was a giant in the industry.